


The Diaries of Howard Stark

by MK_Yujji



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 02:46:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Yujji/pseuds/MK_Yujji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve had always wondered how the good man he'd known could have become the man Tony hated so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Diaries of Howard Stark

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my lovely dongsaeng for the beta job and for hand-holding me through the treacherous world of Tony-speak. We both know I'm more of a Steve kind of girl. ^_^
> 
> This is gen, but a case could possibly be made for pre-slash, I suppose.
> 
> This is based on the canon as established by _Captain America: The First Avenger_ , _Iron Man_ , _Iron Man 2_ , _The Avengers: Assemble_ , and the official comic tie-in _Road to Marvel's The Avengers_. It does not make use of the canon of _any other universe_. Where, obviously, Howard Stark was a raging asshole that bordered on a monster.

~*~*~

When Tony shoves the bundle of small, neatly bound journals into Steve’s arms, the soldier isn’t quite sure what to do about it, never mind what he’s supposed to say.

An arched brow seems to be enough to convey his confusion and Tony shrugs, glancing away. “I was cleaning out the mansion on 5th, looking for something and these just…” The shorter man shrugs again and waves a careless hand at Steve. “They’re his personal crap, not the work stuff and I don’t want them and I was going to throw them away, but then I thought to myself, hey, I bet the Capsicle might appreciate these. So. There. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

He turns and stalks off before Steve can say anything at all.

~*~*~

It takes a week to get through the very last one and Steve is angry as he shuts the book and shoves it to one side.

He’s watched Tony’s reaction to Howard’s name and wondered at it. He’s watched the film and read the files and listened to everyone else talk and he’s always, _always_ wondered how the man he’d known could have gone on to become someone that could cause that sort of reaction in his only son.

He’s wondered if any of it was _his_ fault.

But now…

Steve bites his lip and shakes his head. He isn’t sure, of course. He’s only seeing a series of snapshots, no matter how careful and diligent Howard had been at recording his important day to day details and thoughts. That’s no basis for certainty.

But if what’s happened is what he thinks has happened….

Steve has seldom wanted to hurt someone as badly as he does now.

He takes a deep breath and sits up. His wall is a computer screen somehow - he kept meaning to get Tony to explain it in more detail, but there’s always something more important and he keeps forgetting - and he’s learned enough about the future to know where to start at least.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Can you help me do some research?”

“Of course, Captain.”

~*~*~

When he and the AI are done, the conclusion is inescapable. They’ve gone over the journals and the news articles and every single piece of information more than once, both the stuff that’s public and the stuff that’s very probably extremely classified and illegal for them to be looking at.

Steve isn’t sure what to do with it.

JARVIS advises him to ask the two people who know Tony best, but Steve isn’t sure that’s the right thing to do, either. Tony is a mercurial creature and the months that Steve has known him hasn’t been enough to really get a handle on how he’ll react to things, but Steve _is_ sure that he won’t like being the last to know something.

If Steve tells him anything at all.

~*~*~

“Tony?”

The engineer spins around, shutting off his blow torch as he does. “Oh, hey, Stars and Stripes.”

Grimacing, Steve decides to ignore the nickname. It’s not the worst thing Tony has called him and it’s not worth fighting about. He’s figured out that the other man does it mostly to get a rise out of him. “Hey. Um…”

“They were gifts. Just because they were boring is no reason to try to give them back.” Tony pushes the goggles up, making his hair stand up straight, and rocks back on his heels. Rocks back away from the journals in Steve’s hands.

“No, that’s not…” Steve bites his lip and shrugs. “I’m not giving them back. I mean… Not unless you decide you want them back, which is -”

Tony just laughs, but the knowledge that he’s not expected to take them seems to relax some of the tension that had sprung into his shoulders.

It makes Steve even angrier, the way that Tony reacts to the memory of Howard, knowing what he knows now, knowing it didn’t have to be this way. More than anything though, sadness overwhelms him. Sadness that this good man that he’s coming to know and that good man that he’d once known so well had never been allowed to know _each other_.

“Well, not going to happen, so no worries. What’s up?”

Hesitation wells up again, because Steve still isn’t sure this is the right thing to do. He’s basing his decision on his own personal opinions and he knows that he and Tony are so very different in so many ways.

Tony may hate him for this.

But Steve wants to do this, to bridge the gap that never should have existed in the first place.

He only hopes that it heals more wounds than it causes.

He takes a deep breath and steps forward, setting the journals on Tony’s work table. “Have you ever read these?”

“Uh, yeah, no. Why the hell would I do that? Why the..why would I even need to? The _great Howard Stark_... whatever I didn't know from living with him, everyone else has happily brought up, sometimes in triplicate.” Tony’s starting to look defensive again, there’s tightening around his mouth and eyes as he shies away from the pain of his past as instinctively as any creature that has endured too much would.

Steve hesitates another moment, then puts a hand on Tony’s shoulder, trying to convey strength and comfort and reassurance. “I really, really think that you should read these, Tony. I think that you … need to know.”

Tony rolls his shoulder under Steve’s hand and scoffs, looking away but staying where he’s standing. It’s not as bad a reaction as Steve had actually expected. Not yet, anyways. “If there’s a bunch of drivel about how I’m his greatest creation and he loves me and blah blah blah, there’s no need. I’ve seen that tape. Too little, too late, the train has left the station and is-”

“Tony.” Steve squeezes lightly, hyperaware of his own strength and the fragility of his friend. “There’s… That’s not…. You _need_ to know this, I think.”

Then he makes a strategic retreat, the journals sitting there as Tony’s glare bores holes into his back.

~*~*~

Steve isn’t _surprised_ per se, when he looks up from his sketchbook to find Tony standing in his doorway, clutching the bundle of journals. He’s been expecting it, after all, he just hadn’t expected it so soon.

“I didn’t know.”

“I know.”

“He didn’t…” Tony’s mouth twists and his eyes look suspiciously bright, but Steve doesn’t think there’s any danger of a break down. Any breaking down Tony was going to do, he’d have done before he ventured out of his private sanctuary down in the lab. “JARVIS showed me the rest.”

Steve just dips his head in acknowledgement. He’d expected that.

The other’s huff of laughter is more bitter and brittle than humored. “I should have guessed, I think. After. I mean, it was obvious the way he’d been playing me once I looked back at it, but it never even occurred to me….”

“I think the sort of loyalty that you have for people you care about… it’s the same sort of thing your father had.”

For the first time, being compared to Howard Stark doesn’t send Tony into a tailspin of teeth and venomous snark. Instead he just looks sad. He looks down at the journals in his hands, one thumb running over a spine. “I killed him, you know. Well, Pepper helped. I’m not sorry that we did, but… Now, I really wish I could have done it with my bare hands.” He scoffs and shakes his head, looking up at Steve. “What’s that say about me, Cap?”

“It says you’re human, like the rest of us,” Steve replies, putting his sketchbook aside and swinging his feet off the bed to the floor. “And frankly, if you hadn’t already killed him, I’d be going out to do it myself.”

The startled laughter is more genuine, as Tony gives him a wry look. “Better be careful, Cap. I think they’d revoke your Boy Scout membership for that.”

“You do realize I was never a boy scout, right?”

Tony laughs again, shaking his head. He holds up the journals. “I’m just going to leave these on your desk-”

“No, Tony. They’re yours.”

“Ah ah ah,” the other man wags a finger at him. “I gave them to you. Besides, JARVIS scanned them and uploaded them into the central server. Which is how I prefer to do my reading, by, you know, _not_. Keep these. He’d,” - Tony’s eyes flit away, the fingers of one hand tapping on the journals - ”have wanted you to have them.”

“Okay.” He’d add them to the small biography he has stashed away that Peggy had written about him and the old sketchbooks that Fury had handed over. The good Lord only knew where SHIELD had found them. They’re all bits and pieces of a past he can never really recapture, but is unwilling to let go of. “Thank you, Tony.”

The smile that Tony gives him in return is a little pained, a little unsure around the edges, but it’s real. 

The moment holds, until an idea hits Tony and he snaps his fingers, a grin settling on his face. “Hey, how do you feel about defacing graves? It’s not killing him, but it definitely leaves a lasting mark. And frankly, Obie would have _hated_ it. What say, Bald Eagle? You, me, a few paint brushes, and a mausoleum?”

Steve laughs. It’s kind of hard not to. “Any particular color he’d have hated most?”

Tony’s grin only grows, gleeful excitement setting in. “Neon colors. Especially like.. Orange and pink and shit.”

“We might have to buy those, I’m pretty sure I don’t own any. Pastels, maybe...”

Hands clapping together, Tony beams. “Not a problem! JARVIS, order us six gallons each of neon colored paints!”

“Is that, six gallons for you and six gallons for Captain Rogers or is that six gallons of each color, sir?”

“More is better, JARVIS, I expect you to know that by now.”

“Of course, sir. The order should arrive tomorrow afternoon.”

“Excellent!” Tony mimes shooting a gun at Steve. “Do not get picked up by a hot babe between now and tomorrow night, Cap! We have a date!”

He’s far too cheerful for a man making a date to desecrate a grave and Steve thinks he should probably feel guilty at his own participation, but Tony’s right. It’s not like they can kill Obidiah Stane again for all that he’d taken from the Stark family.

“I’ll be there.”

It’s a promise.

~*~*~  
 _fin_

**Author's Note:**

> This came about from the depth of Howard Stark hate getting thrown about in movie-verse fic and a few scenes in the comic that Marvel put out as an official tie-in for the movie-verse with bits and pieces of their pasts and their parents in it. _Road to Marvel's The Avengers_ for anyone who wants to check it out. I'm _not_ saying Howard Stark was a good father. I'm just saying that people forget that Obie was around for a long time and he started manipulating Howard long before he started manipulating Tony. 
> 
> Edit: I feel the need to add this. I _understand_ the comic-related hate of Howard. I know he was a pretty rotten guy in most of them. This is _solely_ a movie-based fic written in response to other _solely_ movie-based fics. This has _no_ basis in 616 or any other comic-verse _except_ the two Official Movie Tie-In comics.
> 
> Don't worry if you came away not entirely sure what happened in the past, it was meant for to be vague. Let your imaginations run wild with all the ways Obidiah Stane fucked up the Stark men.


End file.
